Hajj participation increases tolerance toward out-group members via cross-group contact

Evidence

No doubt, then, religious practices and rituals can add fuel to conflict. But it is important to emphasize that religious participation can also be coopted to work for greater inclusiveness. In a pioneering study, a team of economists led by David Clingingsmith wanted to know what effects, if any, participation in the hajj—the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca—has on social attitudes toward various groups. Are people transformed by this powerful experience? This annual pilgrimage brings together millions of practicing Muslims from all over the world and all walks of life into the holy city of Mecca to devote themselves to prayer, fasting, and other ascetic practices. Now, ideally, we would want to randomly assign Muslims to either attend the hajj or do something else unrelated to religion, then measure changes in attitudes. Needless to say, such a true experiment is close to impossible to do, but Clingingsmith and his colleagues found a clever alternative that comes very close. Because there are many more pilgrims than there is space to accommodate them, each year there is a quota system that limits the number of pilgrims who can enter Mecca during the hajj. In some countries, such as Pakistan, there is a random lottery that determines who can go to the hajj. Clingingsmith and his colleagues compared the social attitudes of Sunni Pakistani pilgrims who participated in the hajj by winning a random lottery to those who entered the lottery contest but did not win. This procedure is as close as one can get to random assignment, and effectively eliminates “self-selection,” a common problem in this type of research lacking random assignment. Self-selection occurs when any differences found between a “treatment group” and a “control group” may be due to not the treatment itself, but to differences in the type of people who decide to enter the treatment or not. By taking advantage of the lottery, factors that have to do with personality and demographics that could influence attitudes are held constant. … Clingingsmith’s findings were complex and wide ranging, but they told a consistent story: hajj participation led to more tolerance toward Muslims and nonMuslims alike. It increased endorsement of equality, harmony, and peace among different ethnic and religious groups. Participation also encouraged more favorable attitudes toward women and their right to education and jobs. … How did hajj participation change these attitudes, and why? It is too early to know, but additional findings give us possible clues: hajj participation reduced local Pakistani practices and beliefs, such as the use of amulets and dowry, and increased “global” Islamic practices that transcend ethnic boundaries. Moreover, the effect on tolerance was strongest among pilgrims who reported interacting with non-Pakistanis during the hajj. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 537

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core Big God vs. partner-choice framework: hajj pilgrimage builds a shared superordinate identity (global ummah) with strangers, mirroring how shared ‘Big God’ worship builds solidarity — and the tolerance effect tracking inter-ethnic contact echoes contact hypothesis literature and shared ritual cohesion.
• DEFINE: Self-selection is defined here — a bias that random lottery assignment eliminates; relevant methodological grounding for the reader’s cross-source integration.
• QUESTION: The mechanism between hajj and tolerance is open — reduced amulets/dowry and increased global practices suggests common-identity/generic-ritual effects worth tracing against shared-ritual cohesion theory.